Wearable computers, such as head-mounted cameras and displays, smart watches, smart clothes, wearable medical devices, are coming to market at an accelerated pace. Many analysts are predicting an explosive growth of smart wearable devices over the next few years. In 2013, different categories of wearable devices have gained market momentum and, according to some forecasts, annual shipments of wearable computing devices will come close to 20 million units in 2014 and quickly proliferate to over 111 million units by 2016. Other studies, focusing on specific market segments, such as smart glasses (also called VR glasses, augmented reality headsets, head-mounted displays with cameras, etc.) provide similar forecasts. Thus, a recent report estimates that a worldwide use of augmented reality devices may reach 1% of the total world population by 2016, which amounts to more than 70 M units for that category alone.
Recent developments, previews and the start of sales of the Google Glass augmented reality device denote a step in the proliferation of augmented reality devices. Google Glass and other models of smart glasses may interoperate with third party software via published APIs. Many experts agree that the success of wearable computers will be determined by a breadth, usability and convenience of an ecosystem of applications and cloud services built for these devices and interconnecting them.
Within a few months since the release of developer materials and units of Google Glass, hundreds of software applications have been created, including information services indicating how to download data to smart glasses for viewing, as well as how to upload data captured by smart glasses to online services and to other devices, social networking applications, games, remote control software, etc. Tracking and capturing fragments or full views of surrounding scenes is a useful aspect of user experiences with smart glasses. Google Glass offers voice and touch controlled photographing and video recording of scenes, which enhances discovery, learning, research, coordination and other user capabilities. Photos and video clips of real life scenes may be transferred over different types of wireless connections to online services, and eventually to peer devices owned by the user, and may be stored in personal and shared content management systems, such as the Evernote Service developed by Evernote Corporation of Redwood City, Calif.
However, a sheer capturing capability of smart glasses and other wearable augmented reality devices may not be sufficient for their productive use. In many practical scenarios, portions of captured scenes could benefit from basic editing, user annotations or markup for better memorizing, for creating associations with other scenes or adding necessary information. Markup and annotation capabilities may also be useful for soliciting third party advice by the device owner, such as identification of scene objects, getting additional information about them, driving or walking directions, instructions on object manipulation, etc. Therefore, markup and basic image processing capabilities, such as cropping of a portion of a scene, may be quite helpful for the successful use of smart glasses. Numerous markup software applications are available for a variety of desktop and mobile platforms, such as Skitch by Evernote. However, a straightforward use of the available markup software on smart glasses may be problematic due to rudimentary user interface capabilities of augmented reality devices, which are designed for basic interactions with users.
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop a markup system and process for smart glasses and other wearable augmented reality devices, allowing device owners to view and transfer annotated portions of scenes and enabling third parties to interact with the system and supplement markups with their comments and annotations.